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Hugh Pickens writes "Google encourages advertisers to purchase other companies' trademarks as targeted search terms, and they're expanding the practice into 190 countries. When Audrey Spangenberg typed the name of her small software company into Google and saw the ads of competitors that had paid Google to display their marketing messages whenever someone searched for FirePond, a registered trademark, she was furious. This week, her company filed a class-action suit against Google in federal court, saying that Google had infringed on her company's trademark, and challenged Google's policies on behalf of all trademark owners in the state. Legal experts said it was the first class-action suit against Google over the issue. Google's acceptance of such competitive uses of trademarks has irked many other companies, including the likes of American Airlines and Geico, who have filed suits against Google and settled them. Many brand owners say the practice abuses their brands, confuses customers and increases their cost of doing business. 'I know of several companies spending millions of dollars a year in payments to Google to make sure that their company is the very first sponsored link' on searches for their own names, said Terrence Ross, a partner at Gibson Dunn, who represented American Airlines in its suit against Google. 'It certainly smacks of a protection racket,'"

There have already been plenty of cases that addressed this very issue, with a lot of them coming out on the side of the search engine that's providing the ads.

I'm not entirely sure how you're going to prove trademark infringement. Courts have argued whether Google's use is even commercial, much less if the use has a significant likelihood of confusion (mainly because Google's act of only putting these ads in a sponsored link is usually sufficient for the ordinary user to know that the trademark owner isn

Google's use is obviously commercial. They are SELLING the trademarked word.

No, they're selling advertising slots to anyone who wants to provide ads for a given word. Google is operating a for profit business, but they aren't "selling the trademarked word" they sell services associated with trademarked words. If I hire somebody to go interview people down on the corner by the Ford dealership, regardless of my use of the word "Ford" in describing it to them, I'm not making commercial use of the trademark, even if I'm charging people for the survey results.

Here's the google search for Geico [google.com]. You will notice it's clean and clear of any advertisments. Likewise with a google search for AA [google.com], contrast it to a American airlines [google.com], which has an ad. These are on Google's banned ad keywords, such as guns [google.com], Jews [google.com], ammunition [google.com], and other content that Google's morals would rather not see people make money on.

Apparently, they've already added "FirePond" to that list as a search for that term yields no ads [google.com]. What's more, the first link is to firepond.com, presumably the plaintiff's company. So I'm not really sure what the problem is.

We like car examples here, so: your mechanic keeps breaking a different part when you come in, so that you have to pay him to fix it a few weeks from now. You catch him at it, and he fixes that broken part for free, and your car never again has mysterious parts broken.

However, he continues this practice with all his other customers.

The class action suit is to get him to stop breaking anyone's cars, not just your own.

If Google was doing this with the real search results, we might have a problem. Hell even if they put the sponsored ads in the same column right above (like on ebay, or other search engines (MSN)) you might have a case.

Remember a google search result page, in theory, isn't any different than any other web page. So the advert is simply being displayed on a specific page of google's website. It is no different than me paying to have my SQL

The primary focus is *not* protecting the trademark owner.Trademark law is all about protecting consumers from being deceived about the source of goods/services.But Google is not confusing anyone.If Google was displaying the word "FirePond" as a hyperlink to a competitor, THAT would be closer to trademark infringement because there would at least be "initial interest confusion" (where a consumer ends up at the wrong website).But Google isn't doing that. Google is simply promoting competition by displaying competitor's ads when you search for a trademark. The sponsored links, as everyone knows, are displayed in a separate section from the "organic" links.That doesn't confuse anyone, it just gives them more options. Obviously, nobody likes it when you give their customers other options. But it's not trademark infringement.

Exactly. Google isn't taking money to put competitors higher in the search results, or to even lower Firepond in the search results. They are taking money to pop up specific advertisements when people search for a certain term.
A precedent that says they can't sell advertisements for any trademark word is retarded... they couldn't sell them for Kleenex, movie names, song names, website names, etc etc.... basically every single useful search word is probably trademarked somewhere.

The way I see it is that it's little different to a supermarket having competing brands of say, coffee in the same aisle, or shelf.

If Dowe Egberts want - or even pay to be next to Percol the fact that they SAY to the supermarket 'put us next to the Percol coffee' doesn't infringe Percol's trademark, and the resulting proximity doesn't create any confusion.

The search results are an on-the-fly aisle created on the use of a keyword. The keywords are sold simply to REFERENCE the competitor's product so that the 'aisle' can be created.

I don't think it's so much about trademark law or confusion as brand owners whining that a search for their trademark produces a list of results that is not exclusively about them! Oh my! Someone wanting to buy our trademarked product might be reminded that another competing product exists and might buy that instead!

Trademark law is all about protecting consumers from being deceived about the source of goods/services.

In theory, yes, but in practice (as you probably know, since you know what initial interest confusion is), that's not the reality. IIRC, consumers don't even have standing to sue in a case of trademark infringement. Maybe they can sue for false advertising, but it's the trademark owner who has to bring the lawsuit for infringement.

Besides, with the expansion of trademark due to the notion of "dilution", and the licensing of trademarks for purposes other than source-identification (sponsorship, etc. - the stadium doesn't come from M&T Bank), it's hard to argue that trademark is all about protecting consumers, or even mostly about it anymore.

In 1-800 Contacts v. WhenU, [internetlibrary.com] WhenU didn't run into trouble because their ads popped up in a separate window. That's not the case with Google (though they do clearly say "Sponsored Link"). WhenU was also not found to be "using" the trademark (despite including it in a database), because "use" of a trademark for the purpose of infringement has to be in commerce, and simply using the mark in a database didn't count as such.

In 1-800 Contacts v. WhenU, WhenU didn't run into trouble because their ads popped up in a separate window. That's not the case with Google (though they do clearly say "Sponsored Link").

A separate window from what, the content of the site in question? Google isn't displaying ads next to the content of the site. They are displaying ads next to a fair-use sized snippet of the content on the site, namely the search result. This very tiny piece of text is carefully constructed so as not to violate any legal guidelines by people much smarter than either one of us (probably) and is in any case a de facto allowable amount of content to display for the purpose of helping a search engine user decide whether that is the result they're looking for. When you click through the site, there are no more google ads.

This very tiny piece of text is carefully constructed so as not to violate any legal guidelines

The thing is, this is not settled, black-letter law. The best "guidelines" are probably case law, and if you looked at the 1-800 Contacts v. WhenU case, you'll notice that other courts have ruled in different directions.

by people much smarter than either one of us (probably) and is in any case a de facto allowable amount of content to display for the purpose of helping a search engine user decide whether that is the result they're looking for.

More informed about the relevant law? Sure. Smarter? Maybe, but not necessarily. You don't necessarily have to be "smart" to be a lawyer (though I'm sure Google's lawyers are better than the average one).

Furthermore, just because they're very smart doesn't mean other very smart people wo

Hm, I haven't heard of it, but that doesn't mean some court somewhere hasn't applied it. In most of the cases I've read, though, there has been a pretty detailed evaluation of whether a mark is infringing or not. One of the most well known cases involves what are now called the Sleekcraft factors. [wikipedia.org]

> The primary focus is *not* protecting the trademark owner.> Trademark law is all about protecting consumers from being deceived about the source of goods/services.

That is accomplished in part by protecting the integrity of the trademark. Google is allowing company A to advertise via explicit use of company B's trademark, which is illegal. There are only a few instances in advertising where using another company's trademark is allowed, and this isn't one of them. Using another company's trademark

My concern would be the implications of Google not being able to sell ads for competitors for particular, trademarked names.

It's been shown to be fairly common to "brand" a particular type of product with a trademarked name. I want a DVR, but to me (well not me, but some people), they're all "TiVos." That's a pretty hefty branding problem for someone trying to make a competing product already; if they can't even advertise in the same space, or that their product is like a TiVo, but better...

what if i wanted to buy my wacky inflatable arm flailing tubeman from Al Harrington but when i searched google for this product all i got were competitors products, so i would be sorely disappointed in google's help in finding the product of my choice, not only google us disappointing the marketers of products they are also a disappointment to the customers of said products, i think google is seriously fucking up with this practice...

Fine so be it, but it's up to the consumers to be upset that they aren't getting what they want on google, and if that's the case, they should vote with their feet. This isn't an issue to be handled in the courts.

Google, once again, is just using the basic idea of competition to drive a market. There is nothing to see here but some whiney person who is shocked to discovered the world does not revolve around them.

IANAL, but from what I've read, and what I've heard lawyers quote, one of the main factors in judging trademark infringement is the potential of confusion in the mind of the consumer (citation [findlaw.com]).

So if company A can show that the intent of a competitor (company B) buying keyword ad space specifically with company A's trademark in it and their intent is to confuse consumers into thinking company B is company A, then they have a case.

That said, there may be more to this due to the actual practice I've seen in b

I think this is more akin to a Ford dealership placing a highway ad right before the exit to the GM dealership. This is just another advertising medium and the business see customers heading to a certain product and want to make sure on that path that they inject their own product. So long as the competing businesses aren't trying to pass themselves off as the original company I don't think they have anything here. Further, I think Google needs to be shown as complicit in that as well.

This is equivalent to putting "recommended books" near other similar, popular books in a book store. Only, companies pay you to have you move your book towards the prime areas. No trademarks were infringed, nothing was misleading, its the digital equivalent to rearranging stock in a store.

Yes, and as you can see, theres no trademark violation. Sure, you might want to shop someplace else, and there are loads of search engines. But its not illegal and sure as heck doesn't involve trademarks.

The purpose of a trademark is to identify a product uniquely; this is done in order to help buyers, not to help companies.

As long as customer is not misled about what he is buying, the use of the trademark is OK. So, if someone responds to a search for "FirePond" with an ad for "SmokeLake", that's not a problem. They can even talk about "FirePond" and why "SmokeLake" is so much better.

It would cross the line if SmokeLake made a web site that looked like it belonged to FirePond and customers might actually

I think a real problem is that many names for trademarks and businesses will be duplicated through sheer probability, I really doubt this case has any legs at all against google. Google gahters the enormous amounts of data from all over the world, it would be like trying to sue someone because they have the same name as you or your business and they are located in another country. It doesn't make any kind of sense.

Personally I think a lot of old laws simply have to be obsoleted or updated to deal with th

Idon't really see how this is any worse then generics that say "compare active ingredients to " and similar messages on storebrand food items. Sometimes they sit right next to the brandname as well, the horror!

I think this issue is one of the problems with old laws governing new technologies.

It would seem that being able to generate money from someone else's trademark, copyright, etc.. would be an abuse without the owner's consent, however, trying to run a search engine without them would kill a critical function of the Internet. Web searches

Now the choice is.. do we allow it for functionality or do we deny it on principle, or, as is really happening, just deny the use when you bring in enough lawyers.

I read all these analogies on what it is that Google did and here is my take:

For the purpose of this analogy imagine Google owns a telephone directory where your number gets listed for free for your business, but there is also a "Yellow Pages" section, where you can pay to have your business listed with number and some info - now imagine you only have your number listed in the free section, and a competitor of yours bought an add, put YOUR company name in it with THEIR number.

The ads don't contain the trademark, they're simply triggered by a search for that trademark. The former would be confusing for consumers, since it would make them think the ad is for that trademark, while the latter is just an ad for a related service (that happens to be a competitor).

If an ad is misleading, it needs to be pulled. But if it's just an ad? Why do searches that contain a trademark have to be handled any differently than any other search? This opens up a whole can of worms. What about tra

A big reason that America is in the shape we are, is because far too many idiots sue. And they sue, because some GD lawyer tells them that other party will settle. I went through a 4 year divorce because my ex was told that it would cost me 100K (on top of the money that I had already given her on a 1 year marriage) and that I would settle rather than fight it. It cost 60K+ (less than the 100K), but still, this was caused because the other lawyer pushed this crap.

I went through a 4 year divorce because my ex was told that it would cost me 100K (on top of the money that I had already given her on a 1 year marriage) and that I would settle rather than fight it. It cost 60K+ (less than the 100K), but still, this was caused because the other lawyer pushed this crap.

I hope for your sake that you use a contract for any future open-ended commitment.

Marriage is business. Never enter a business partnership without protecting yourself first.

A while back I got a call from a Google salesman, wanting to sell me various keywords for about $300/month, so my website would pop up when those keywords were used.

So explain to me how this sales dude found my website in the first place, hmmmm??

======

I got a similar call from Linkfish last week. They wanted to sell me those same keywords for $1300 and up, "for life". Meanwhile I was busy looking up info on the company, which turns out to be a subsidiary of eperks (whose reputation is far less than sterlin

I can't quite decide where I come down on this issue...I'll have to think it through, and of course my decision will be final and binding on all of you. In the mean time, consider this analogy.

There's a stretch of highway, a few hundred feet long. On the left end there's a store called Brass Cat Shoes(tm). Brass Cat Shoes has been there for quite a while, and is pretty well known, at least in Brass Cat Shoe circles. And they have the trademark. On the right end of the stretch of highway is another store nam

Dave pays billboard owner Boogle to display "Brass Cat Shoes" in type that will occupy 1 full degree of arc of a viewer's vision, vertically. He also pays for an equally large arrow, to be displayed, pointing to his store, down and to the right.

If Google would actually suppress search results of competition you might have a point, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. As far as I understand it, its just Google selling targeted advertisment space. Nothing wrong with that. How is it illegal for Ford to place an advertisment next to a GM dealership?

Placing a physical ad in proximity to a plot of land belonging to a competitor does not specifically depend on the exploitation of the competitor's trademark - a mark which they have to pay for and which supposedly affords them a degree of legal protection versus others exploiting it to their benefit.

Placing a web ad effectively "on" a competitor's trademark does - it could be argued (and seems likely to be the thrust of the lawsuit) - does mean that the ad's existence entirely depends on that trademark. The party selling the keyword is - again it could be argued - effectively selling the misuse of competitor's protected trademarks - definitely a no-no.

The fact that earlier one-to-one cases with Google vs large corporates resulted in settlements would seem to suggest to (IANAL) me that Google themselves may be concerned that there could be a case to answer here.

Let's say that company "A" makes a pill called "Pill A" (I'm being real creative) Company "B" makes a generic version. As the targeted group for Company B are the people buying Pill A, it makes sense that they would place ads in places that people who buy Pill A would see them.

As this in no way interferes with actual search results, I don't see a problem.

Which is where the confusion lies. Trademark law doesn't exist to completely protect someone from using the trademark in any way, shape, or form.

Remember the Pepsi Challenge ads? It's perfectly legal to create an ad that says I'm as good as Coke, or better than Coke, or that more people prefer me to Coke. What I can't do, however, is create a competing product and slap a Coke label on it. IOW, I can't market my product under the same name, as t

How is it illegal for Ford to place an advertisment next to a GM dealership?

That's about the best analogy I've read so far. There's a car angle and everything.

Google is simply firing ads at users based on the search string they entered. If they wanted to give Fold ads to people who searched for 'peanut butter' that's their business.

How is Google supposed to know a word is violating someone's trademark? They're not all as obvious as Xerox, or IBM. Is Google expected to do a trademark search on every word and phrase their advertising customers want to purchase? That's going to get awfully expensive.

Or should the customer have to sign an agreement stating that none of their adsense words violate anyone's trademark anywhere, and provide some sort of notification/counter-notification system? I guess the customer should be doing a trademark search anyway, if they are going to compete in the international marketplace.

Why isn't this woman suing the company who purchased her name as an adsense word? If anyone has violated her trademark, it's them.

Here's another analogy, if I bought an ad in a national magazine advertising my company, who's name happens to be trademarked by another another company in the same industry that I may or may not have known about, is that company going to sue the magazine that ran the ad, or me? Can the magazine be responsible for doing a trademark search on every ad they run?

How about other IP laws? Is Google responsible because I bought an adsense word to advertise my new software that violates someone else's software patent? Or violates the GPL?

Is Google responsible because I advertised a site with a bunch of bit torrent trackers to illegal copies of Wolverine?

I like your solution. Google can provide the information (that's what they do best anyway), and if a lawsuit comes out they can say "Don't sue us. We told you when you bought KLEENEX as an ad-word that Kleenex(TM) is a registered trademark of Kimberly-Clark Worldwide, Inc."

This would also make sense for more "common" words. I might have an apple orchard called John's Apples, and want to buy APPLE as a keyword. AAPL may own the the word as part of their trademark, but guards it only in the computer ar

How is Google supposed to know a word is violating someone's trademark?

They should hire someone to research these things.

This whole argument fails because it implies that a "word" violates a trademark. Trademarks's are words, phrases, images, and the like that are associated with a specific company or product in a specific market. The same word can be trademarked hundreds of times as it applies to different markets.

The purpose of trademark laws are to prevent one company from masquerading as another and thus mislead customers. If you offer a product similar to someone else you can't have a name so similar that it would confuse customers. That's the only valid purpose for trademarks.

So you're saying only large companies deserve trademark protection?

This is a strawman argument. He said no such thing.

YES That is why we have trademarks. The IPO (UK trademark office) has a searchable database and I'd bet the US equivalent does too.

No we have trademarks to prevent one company from fooling consumers into thinking they're buying from someone else. For example, say I do a search for "hydra". The word is trademarked by several companies. Google wants to provide appropriate ads. Suppose they show an advertisement for the services offered by the Hydra Biosciences company. Does this mean they're confusing users since they might think those services are being offered by the same software company that produces the sewage planning software "Hydra" (also trademarked under that name)? If they show ads for other biosciences companies like Phizer, are they misleading consumers into thinking that the advertisements which clearly say "Phizer" in them are actually from the company "Hydra Biosciences"?

You can make that argument, but it is a bloody weak one. I don't buy it and I don't think the courts will. Presenting me with ads for competitors is not a trademark violation any more than when I go to the grocery store and buy Coke, the company matches a keyword and gives me a coupon for Pepsi. I'm not confused that one is actually the other unless the names and products are confusingly similar. This is just companies looking for any and all ways to use the courts to try to stop competitors from advertising to people who know their brand. Here's a better idea, make products that are better and cheaper, rather than trying to prevent people from hearing about your competitors through legal shenanigans.

The key is that Google is charging money for these names.. that is enough value of "doing business" with the trademarked name but not with it's registered owner. This is similar to cybersquatting on domain names. Just because the trademarked name doesn't have somebody paying for ads doesn't mean Google can charge for ads against that name+field+keywords in it's "newspaper".

Like cybersquatting, once money starts changing hands to approve or deny service, then it becomes a trademark issue because the law says

I can make money by placing an ad in the paper that says "Is your GM car a piece of shit? Buy a Honda at...". Just because I use a trademarket term to make money does not mean my actions are illegal. I have to be confusing consumers into thinking my product is a trademarked one or one from a specific trademarked company name.

This is similar to cybersquatting on domain names.

Not really. It's a lot closer to "DellSucksBuyAMac.com". Cybersquatting, I might mention is not a violation of normal trademark la

No it isn't, cybersquatting prevents anybody else from using a domain. Setting a key word for ad views does no such thing. The owner of the trade mark can also purchase the advertising on google as well.

Google doesn't go to the outside of a GM dealership.They have a booth on the mall where you GO IN and look for adverts.And you can always leave their booth without being hurt when you don't care a shit about their stuff.Google doesn't take away anything from GM, it is an optional service.

Yeah, except you'd have to expand that to "Google owns the building the dealership is in".

People can't get around Google today. Or at least, nobody wants to. Google owns the search engine, google profits from the advertisers, google provides a place for people to questionably violate trademark for profit, google profits from this questionable behavior.

Fair point, but I'm still inclined to believe Google is in the right here. Apart from anything else, the actual non-sponsored listings are not affected, and they're free; if I search for American Airlines the first real result is their website, at no cost to them whatsoever. The only cost is if a company demands to be top in the sponsored listings as well, and to block out the suggestion of their competitors' products.

To warp a tenuous analogy even further: Google is like a department store. The customer en

But Google does accurately provide the link to the brand you asked for. It's almost invariably the top link of the actual search results, which are freely included and not interfered with by Adsense payments. In fact, for any moderately popular brand there will be pages upon pages filled entirely with various suppliers of precisely the trademarked brand name you searched for.

The search results - the 'true' product of your search, include only the keyword Armani. To me this is akin to being placed in the Armani section of the hypothetical store. Surrounding the search results, but separate from them, are the context adverts - these point to other brands you are likely to be interested in. Akin to flyers, or posters on the wall, in my opinion.

I think the key issue is that they do not redirect or alter the main body of your search. Only the data presented alongside, related to but not part of the search is for sale.

I go into a department store and ask an associate to direct me to Armani suits. The associate shows me Gucci because Gucci paid the department store to misdirect anyone looking for Armani to instead be shown Gucci.

That would be like me searching for Mercedes, www.mbusa.com is in the results and when I click it takes me to www.bmw.com.

The associate shows me Gucci because Gucci paid the department store to misdirect anyone looking for Armani to instead be shown Gucci.

You must be new to the internet. Let me help you out a little. When you use Google, they provide both search results, and ads. The search results are the ones that you normally want to look at after a search. Those are the equivalent to the nice associate giving you the information on how to find Armani. The flier that the associate hands you is the equivalent to a targeted ad. You still get your search result. You are also given an ad.

What Google did is more like walking around in front of a Ford dealership while wearing a sandwich board advertising Chevrolet.

Which is legal. Public sidewalks, and all that. A local pizza joint has a guy out on the street corner with signs telling them to stop on by and get a pizza from a locally owned mom and pop pizza joint.

Mind you, the street corner he stands on is about 3 blocks away from said joint, and coincidentally right next to a local Pizza Hut...

And you're forgetting one important thing, which makes it even more legal.

What Google did is more like walking around in their own business in front of a Ford salesman that they invited into their business while wearing a sandwich board advertising Chevrolet.

www.Google.com is not public property. We go to their private servers and bring them our business because they have the best search resource available to us, and because they are mostly neutral.

But they don't have to be. They are, but they are not legally required to be. And no one would ever accuse them of being neutral on the "Sponsored links" sections.

www.Google.com is not public property. We go to their private servers and bring them our business because they have the best search resource available to us, and because they are mostly neutral.

But they don't have to be. They are, but they are not legally required to be. And no one would ever accuse them of being neutral on the "Sponsored links" sections.

Exactly. Everyone who remembers back when search technology was more primitive and search engines honored the <meta> tag with keywords and every fledgling software company would put the big guys products in the keywords in order to get traffic from search engines. In fact, the top hits on Google for html meta tag [google.com] talks about what these are and how they don't work anymore.

If targeted advertising and direct competition by name was a trademark violation, I believe that Microsoft would have put Apple ou

What Google did was circumvent my search request, and provide me with bogus search results.

No, the argument is about the ads shown alongside the search results. Searching for a company name almost always give you their website as the first search result, regardless of whether they have paid for any ads.

And aside from that, they are not obliged to give you accurate or even any search results.
Many search engines did tilt their results towards paid avertisers, and have lost market share when users got an

First, your analogy does not apply here. And yes, if I sell T-shirts with a trademark on them without permission(McDonalds, Nike, NHL team names, whatever) then I am opening myself up to a very simple trademark case, one that I will lose badly (if I don't settle, which is the wise thing to do). I can mention trademark names as part of a discussion, but just sticking them on a T-shirt would be a problem.Now if you have a T-shirt that says "McDonalds sucks" and/or a picture of Ronald being bitch-slapped by Hamburglar then that would be protected as free speech because it is parody. They might come after you to surpress it, but they likely won't win. But most people will settle anyways because they can't afford a legal siege, even if they are right.

Selling a T-Shirt with McDonalds name on it and selling advertising with McDonalds name on it.

You must be somewhere in Europe. In the US, you're allowed to mention your competitors by name in your advertisements (as long as you're not impersonating them). What you're not allowed to do however is to list yourself in the white pages under your competitor's registered name (and yes, I am indeed mixing apples and oranges by using this analogy, I just couldn't think of a better one).

But no one is being impersonated. Is it illegal for a business to place an advertisement next to a competitor's advertisement in the yellowpages? No.

To expand on your Yellowpages angle, if the Yellow Pages people put "Xerox" in the index, instead of "Copiers," and it pointed it at a page with Xerox, Cannon and Brother copier ads, they would be diluting the Xerox's trademark and potentially guilty of infringement.

So what's the difference? I think it's that Google isn't choosing the word that will trigger its

Someone comes up to you on the street and asks you where the nearest McDonald's is and you reply "There is a Wendy's around the corner". Have you committed trademark infringement? The only difference between this and Google is that Google makes money from doing this which might be an important difference.

What Google is doing is more akin to the phone company letting a John's Ford dealership have an entry with their phone number in the Name of Joe's Chevrolet that comes before the actual entry for Joe's Chevrolet.

This is a natural end result of notions of real property beingconflated with things like patents and trademarks. People getfed this stuff year after year and then suddenly to salivate theway the megacorps want them too when the big bell is rung.

This is the end result of a long and successfully corporate propaganda campaign.

But its not, the links are clearly sponsored links. This would be outrageous if the top result (not the sponsored link) was for Coke, but its not. I'd rather Google do that for advertising which A) Is actually relevant B) is clean looking C) doesn't involve a dancing flash monkey screaming YOU WON A FREE* PSP!.

How do you know you want Pepsi? Maybe you've just never tasted Coke before.

Sometimes, when I do a Google search, I'm looking for a website I've already visited. In that case, this advertising is pointless.

Most of the time, I'm doing a Google search to find a solution to a problem. I need a widget, and I go searching for ACME, since I know they're a fine provider of widgets. I do not, however, know a lot about widgets. So I would be quite pleased to see a variety of results about different widgets.